Today we celebrate the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows in which we commemorate the many sufferings Our Lady endured upon giving her fiat and becoming Theotokos. Traditionally, her seven sorrows or dolors consist of the prophesy of Simeon that a sword of sorrow would pierce her heart; the Holy Family's flight into Egypt as political refugees; the losing of the Child Jesus in the Temple area; the Way of the Cross; the Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord Jesus; the Descent of Jesus from the Cross; and the burial/entombment of Jesus. One can only dimly understand the intense sorrow that Our Lady must have experienced at seeing her beloved Son and long-awaited Savior of the World rejected and suffering from the time of His infancy until His dying breath in order to set us free from our sins, limitations and transgressions. As the Immaculata, it is certain that her capacity for sorrow was heightened and the depth and breadth of these sacrifices more keenly understood as the Timeless Woman who was hailed as being "full of grace." Her eyes, ears, mind, hands and heart were in a perpetual posture of openness and receptivity that enabled her to receive the mystery and love of God in the purest sense possible in her humanity. Blessed Mother could feel deeply in the fullness of each of these distressing events as they unfolded due to her purity of heart and her sensitivity to all things pertaining to God, others, and herself, and in her vocation as wife of St. Joseph and mother of Jesus.
In our human experience, we can perhaps relate in our own smaller ways to the Our Spiritual Mama's sorrows as we experience the daily tragedies, disappointments, destruction, discord, and brokenness within our own hearts as well as as what we see in our families, communities, country and the greater world. We see the hurting hearts of humanity and can only imagine the immense sorrow that Our Lord and Our Lady continue to feel as they witness how lost Abba's children have become upon the journey of life and how we pierce the Sacred Heart of Jesus and cause Him such sorrow and pain. Pondering such tristesse can cause us to feel overwhelmed, perhaps even verging upon hopelessness, as we wonder how such sorrows can be resolved and when we will be able to enjoy the heavenly banquet when God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passes away." [Rev 21:4]
I want to look at these inevitable sorrows of our lives through the lens of tears, which are the body's way of cleansing the heart and spirit of the anguish we experience in our lives. On a neurobiological level, there are three types of tears known as reflexive, continual, and emotive or psychic. The first two ensure that noxious chemicals and irritants are flushed from your eyes and that they remain lubricated. The third type of psychic tears are structurally different on a molecular level and contain neurotransmitters with natural opioids that ease and numb the pain associated with tears of sadness. How fascinating it is that in Hebrew, the word for tears is dema or dimah which comes from the root word dalet (meaning door or pathway), mem (meaning water), ayin (meaning eyes). One can go even further than this in noting the correlation between the following Hebrew words:
- Adam [man]; adama [ground]; dam [blood]; adom [red]; dema [tears]
This suggests that we were created for the capacity to cry, and just as we shed blood when we have experienced physical pain, so we shed tears with spiritual and emotional pain indicating an injury to the soul. This literally means that our tears are "blood of the eyes".
This speaks of vulnerability and a profound offering of the very center and core of one's being that are released and offered when crying. Our Lady of Sorrows' tears were clearly expressing the deepest center of her Immaculate love, motherhood and femininity. Her maternal tears were as an offering to the Father that expressed the most fundamental suffering of her soul as she watched the sorrows predicted by Simeon unfold over time and which freely flowed to be collected in the palm of God's Hands..
In The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von Le Fort, she speaks of this inevitable grief in a mother's life and as experienced by Our Lady in being the Mother of the Christ Child. "Every mother's destiny is, in the last analysis, the unending renewal of the pangs of giving birth. To give life to a child means fundamentally that the child detaches itself from her life...There is no loneliness on earth like that of a mother; she is not being parted from some other loved one, but the sword that pierces her heart separates her from her own flesh and blood." [p.99] Fulton Sheen develops this further in The World's First Love by explaining that love is inseparable from sorrow and Our Lady would taste many tears due to her perfection in living out this love.
Therefore, such tears are never wasted but are instead like precious pearls that shine before God. They nourish the earth for a future time of bloom and harvest. Time again this release of tears from the heart reaches the throne of heaven and is transformed into deeper intimacy and healing. God tells Isaiah to communicate to Hezekiah, "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears (dima-teka). I will surely heal you. " [2 Kgs 20:5] and we are reassured by the Psalmist that God "delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears (dimah), my feet from stumbling"[Ps 116:8] and that the Lord has even placed our tears within his bottle [Ps 56:8].
This is why it is essential that we mourn and weep. Jesus Himself assures us that "blessed are those who mourn and weep, for they shall be comforted." [Mt 5:4] Indeed, our bodies and spirits are made for it. Tears heal our souls and touch the compassionate Heart of God Himself. If we plug up our emotions and sorrows causing these interior fountains of heartfelt sadness to become frozen, we become stuck and stymied. We are unable to move forward in trust amidst the sorrow. We become bitter and resentful amidst the transformational and mysterious power of the Cross in our lives. Just as an infant cries when in need as one totally dependent upon his or her mother (or father), so we as needy supplicants cry out to God in union with our Celestial Mother and Queen for relief. The power found in such cries of the heart become potent reminders of our utter dependence upon God, and can move mountains and the very Divine Will and Breath of God. In such moments, our utter helplessness meets God's omnipotence, His merciful Heart, and HIs Divine Provision to provide for us as children. This spiritual reality has been noted among one researcher who shares his stunning findings that, "prayer is the adult manifestation of infantile crying" and that the brain's neural activity is similar between one and the two. [See House of Weeping https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/9780884143512.pdf].
This release from the bowels or our being can become pools of lifegiving drink and living waters, to such an extent that the Eastern Church holds the charism of the gift of tears as expressed in prayer to be the highest spiritual charism as it signifies a baptism or rebirth in the Holy Spirit. It indicates a softening of the heart and an openness and receptivity to receive and accept the gifts that Our Lord holds for us in every situation. It is an infusion of grace expressed in our teardrops that communicates profound love for the Holy Trinity, and it transforms our sorrows, failings, disappointments, and fears into a quiet joy and abiding with the Lord and an oasis within the landscape of our souls as we continue our pilgrimage on earth. Our tears are little baptismal fonts that bring us to the fountain of God Himself. The Virgin Mary teaches us how to surrender into the profound sufferings and sorrows of our lives, in order for them to be transformed and transfigured into the Resurrection and our own rebirth moments. By embracing the sorrows, we continue upon the path of the Paschal mystery in our lives. We appear naked and vulnerable before God and others, and this enables new possibilities, vistas, and doors to be opened.
We share in Our Lady's sorrows today as we remember her dolors and the excruciating pain she must have felt in seeing Jesus misunderstood, mistreated, and finally fully rejected to the point of becoming the Lamb of God slain upon the Cross for our sins and transgressions. Amidst this almost unimaginable tragedy is the quiet knowing that her tears throughout all these events were as childlike prayers to the Lord that were received by Him, and which moved His Heart of Compassion and Mercy to new life for all of humanity. Such is the case with our own tears, as we cry out "Jesus" and "Abba, Father." He listens to our cries, He collects our tears, and He comforts us. Through our tears, He draws us to Himself upon the Cross. Such heartfelt tears are then never wasted but become a wellspring of grace. So let us embrace them as they roll down our cheeks and water the interior gardens of our souls.
